Non-profits in Second Life

See if you can find anything about VERTU - an organization that raised a considerable sum for several charities during its short existence. If there is anything documented, you might find it interesting to see what problems they faced.

Yeek! What an idiot I am, standing very corrected. Very sorry for the dumb mistake.

Here’s the latest development from TechSoup’s campaign to help non-profits use Second Life – an event simultaneously in Second Life and in San Francisco on July 18th.

Susan Tenby, Online Community Manager of TechSoup.org, and Jeska Linden will present a tour of SL, including TechSoup's satellite office. The presenters will also demo a directory of nonprofit organizations in the Second Life world. Finally, the event will feature a number of guest speakers from organizations who are actively working in the Second Life community to better achieve their organization's missions.

For more info check -
http://upcoming.org/event/88581/

I'd love for you to wander over to https://www.omidyar.net/group/secondlife/news/16/ and add your voice to that forum thread as well.

Dearly Darlings,

The Second Life Support Lotto Group is a not for profit here in SL geared towards the in-world. There is grant money for artists, engineers, musicans and the like. In addition to the grant funds, this group has a monthly lottery for a Premium Membership and a 512 Linden stypend for the purchase of first land. We are extremely lucky our patrons are very generous. Interested parties may contact the group via notecard to our Recording Secretary Mr. Maneo Suntzu. The Board of Directors then decides which projects receive funding. The group is led by Mr. Lord Sullivan. I am the Treasurer.

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

I love the idea of a non-profit for projects within SL - that's so spooky! Are we spending too much time in world?

Beth Kanter has blogged a couple of pieces about Somit Mishra of http://GlobalGiving.com at:

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/07/meet_budley_ome.html

http://blogher.org/node/6979

Sombit: "In Second Life, we would like to create a virtual GlobalGiving community that features project descriptions and links, along with virtual representations and games to educate and inspire volunteers to market and raise funds for projects on globalgiving.com. The most attractive components of Second Life are that physical distance is a non-factor and information can be disseminated easily, which is exactly how we want people to feel about the GlobalGiving experience. We are actively looking for designers that would be williing to create virtual property on our behalf and market it to the SL community."

So I want you to take a look at the http://globalgiving.com projects, pick one to illustrate in SL, and contact Sombit at [email]smishra@globalgiving.com[/email]

Hi all,

Haney and Beth, thanks for spreading the word about the proposed GlobalGiving Virtual Marketplace in Second Life!

The idea behind the Virtual Marketplace is to identify a select group of projects from www.globalgiving.com, provide willing designers with the project links, photos, and descriptions, and have participating designers build dynamic virtual representations of each project. There's a lot of creative energy in SL, and I'm sure the short list of projects below will spur a whirlwind of ideas.

Current Project Selection
-----------------------------

1) Practical Protection for Women in Darfur, Sudan
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1500/proj1402a.html

2) Help Mexican Farmers Raise Sheep and Incomes
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1000/proj992a.html

3) Help keep 41,000 Bhutanese children in school
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1500/proj1478a.html

4) Computer Classroom for Education for DEPDC
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1100/proj1056a.html

5) Reaching the Disabled Through Mobile Clinics
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1400/proj1379a.html

6) Supplying Critical Water for Haitian Hospital
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1100/proj1007a.html

7) Reach the unreached! Delivering care in Africa
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/900/proj825a.html

$6 Life-Saving Anti-Malaria Bednets
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/700/proj610a.html

9) Bring Renewable Energy to 20 Peruvian Communities
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1400/proj1338a.html

10) Help 100 Iraqi Women Launch a Business
http://www.globalgiving.com/pr/1200/proj1149a.html

In March 2005, GlobalGiving launched a similar real world experiment in Palo Alto, inviting social entrepreneurs from around the world to showcase their projects to a panel of jurors and the public. In addition to allowing social entrepreneurs to compete for funding, the forum was a meeting ground for great ideas and shared learnings.

Whereas the 2005 real world marketplace showcased exhibits through cardboard placards, Second Life provides the potential to demonstrate each project in action. In Second Life, we anticipate that the Marketplace would serve as a transparent forum to exchange ideas about innovative projects, and to display how each project works using all of the creative visuals/sound effects that designers can think of.


I invite everyone to provide feedback/suggestions on how to develop and improve the GlobalGiving Marketplace for the Second Life community. If you are interested in designing a project (among those listed above) and/or contributing ideas to the Virtual Marketplace, please email me at [email]smishra@globalgiving.com[/email]. Thanks so much for your support!

Regards,

Sombit

Beth Kanter just published an interview with Jeska Linden, Community Manager, about non-profits in Second Life .

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2006/07/an_interview_wi.html

Tx for the link, Haney

If there are any newbies who have been through the orientation island and/or classes, and just want to improve skills with nonprofit colleagues prior to the tech soup event on July 18th, than please do join us on:

Friday, July 14th
2 EST
TechSoup Office
http://tinyurl.com/ogbpd

We're just gonna kick back, chat, and learn some SL skills so we can get the most about the event in-world.

Dearly Darling,

I'm usually out and about with the dogs...showing, judging and teaching disabled children pet skills or raising money RL for projects. The last one I assisted with made 5,449,081 USD.

Hopping off to Bermuda with my RL/SL husband for our 30th next.

Then it's yearbook ad editor for the CCRCA. Then September will, I'm sure, bring something new.

I've just happened to make some really nice friends here who like to do chairty work in-world. It's only logical that I help out.

Ever Yours,

Mrs. Showdog Tiger

I just wanted to let you all know that we are having a mixed reality event, tomorrow, July 18th, at 6pm PST. Here is the official announcement. And for those of you in San Francisco, come join us at the TechSoup RL offices and meet Jeska Linden, the presenter in RL. Here is the "official announcement":
-----
Net Tuesday Mixed Reality Event: SecondLife for Nonprofits

Tuesday, July 18, 2006 (6:00 PM - 8:00 PM)

Real World Location:

Net2 HQ
322 Ritch St. 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA
415-633-9446
San Francisco, California

Virtual Location:
>From Second Life, click on the blue map button at the bottom of the screen. In the Find Region field, type "TechSoup.org" (without quotations) and include mature regions, click Show Location and then Teleport to go there.

Here is the SLurl to TechSoup's virtual location:
http://tinyurl.com/ogbpd

You need to be logged into SL to open this SLurl, and then once you
click, open your map and click teleport. You will be teleported to
TechSoup.

----------------------------------------------------------

Every month, Web innovators and those who promote social change
congregate in a shared effort to bring the social Web to nonprofits and
NGOs all over the world. These meetings are referred to as Net Tuesday
events.

July's Net Tuesday will feature a presentation about how nonprofits can
use Second Life, a multiplayer community on the Web. In Second Life,
users create their own characters (called avatars) and help build a
virtual 3D world that's created entirely by its inhabitants and limited
only by the imagination.

Second Life boasts a successful marketplace, social interactions, and
civic activities; it's a virtual community rather than a game, and
nonprofits can benefit from this community in a number of ways. The Net
Tuesday event, which will occur on July 18th, will be held at
TechSoup's satellite office in Second Life.

Susan Tenby, Online Community Manager of TechSoup.org, and Jeska
Dzwigalski, Community Manager at Linden Lab, (the company that created
and runs Second Life), will present a tour of this online community,
including TechSoup's satellite office. The presenters will also demo a
directory of nonprofit organizations in the Second Life world. Finally,
the event will feature a number of guest speakers from organizations
who are actively working in the Second Life community to better achieve
their organization's missions.

The event will simultaneously occur both virtually, in Second Life and
in the physical world. We will be displaying audio/video footage of
both environments to show participants in both locations what is
happening at that time.

To ensure smooth operation of the virtual event, we will restrict the
TechSoup space to those on the guest list, which operates on a
first-come-first-serve basis and will be capped at about 50
registrants. SHow up early to ensure that you get a space!

For more newbie and How-To information, check out the Second Life wiki:
http://secondlife.com/tiki/tiki-index.php?page=How-Tos

Here is a great intro piece on how SL can be used for serious purposes:
http://futuretag.net/index.php/Slgp1
--------------


--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~

Showdog - Second Life is lucky to have you invovled!

Beth's blog of the mixed reality ("How is reality?" - "Mixed" event is at http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/

Last night's event was great experience for me, so fabulous to connect to so many passionate SL/Non-profit Residents.

Torley captured some photos in-world as well:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/torley/sets/72157594204171687/